The damage done to the arena was extensive and required a full day to repair. Because of this, the final round of the tournament was going to be held tomorrow.

It was late at night. Wu Jian sat on his bed, thinking about Hou Jingshu. She had been very quiet since her battle against Mei Xilan. She must have been frustrated. He would have been if their positions were reversed.

Perhaps I should pay her a visit?

He hadn’t snuck into her room at all since they began traveling. Part of the reason was because Zhou Lihua had been with them for most of the time, and she could not partake in acts of intimacy with him. He was holding himself back so she wouldn’t feel left out. However, Zhou Lihua was currently with her family, so maybe it was about time he paid his princess a late night visit?

Before he could get off his bed, someone knocked at his window. He paused. Only one person would come to him in the middle of the night like this.

Opening the window, he leaned over and looked down, but was then forced to move back as a cloaked figure leapt through. The person removed their cloak to reveal long brown hair descending in waves. Hou Jingshu stood up and blinked her vibrant green eyes as he shut the window and closed the blinds. He didn’t want anyone seeing them.

“I was just about to come visit you,” Wu Jian said.

The Shang Kingdom princess wasn’t dressed in her martial gi, but instead wore something like a bathrobe. It was a pink ruqun hanfu made from thick cotton. Tying it together was a small sash around her waist.

“...” Hou Jingshu said nothing. She cast her head down, bangs hiding her face. All Wu Jian could see as he moved around her was the way she bit her lower lip and balled her fists.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Hou Jingshu shook her head. Then, with startling suddenness, she lunged forward, knocking Wu Jian onto the bed. He lay on his back with her head resting on his chest. Two strong thighs trapped his hips between them. Her shoulders shook. He thought she might be crying at first, but she wasn’t shedding any tears.

He sighed and began gently rubbing her head. “Are you frustrated because you lost to Mei Xilan?”

Hou Jingshu nodded. “I hate this feeling. It feels like all the hard work I put into getting stronger has been wasted, like no matter how hard I cultivate or how much strength I gain, it will always amount to nothing. I can’t stand this feeling of helplessness.”

Wu Jian could have offered her any number of platitudes. He could have told her that she only lost because Mei Xilan was at the Human Limit Realm, which was true. He could have also told her that she would beat Mei Xilan next time if she trained harder, which could be true, too, if she managed to get much stronger.

He said none of that.

Had their positions been reversed, Wu Jian would not have appreciated it if Hou Jingshu offered platitudes like that. What Hou Jingshu wanted wasn’t condolences. She wanted understanding.

“Losing sucks,” he said.

“It sucks big time,” Hou Jingshu agreed. “It felt like I had finally begun to grow into my cultivation method, that I was finally learning how to properly gain strength… and then I lost. I can’t help but question myself. Am I really growing stronger?”

Wu Jian said nothing as he continued stroking Hou Jingshu’s hair, which felt like silk against his hands. The fine threads of light brown contained a glimmer as sparse amounts of light speared the room.

“What do you think I should do?” she asked suddenly.

He knew she would ask that question, and he had already prepared an answer. “I think you should get stronger. If there is an obstacle in your way, and you can’t remove it right now, all you need to do is grow stronger so you can remove it. Barring that, you can always circumvent it.”

“… That latter suggestion feels a lot like giving up,” his princess mumbled into his chest.

“Then all you can do is grow stronger so you can eventually remove every obstacle in your path,” he said.

“I know you’re right. I guess it’s just frustrating to always be reminded that there’s someone stronger out there. Say I do eventually beat Mei Xilan. She’s not even the strongest person our age. There are people younger than her who are also stronger than her. Will I have to train even harder just to compete with those people too? I feel like someone who hiked a really tall mountain and felt like I had reached the top of the world, only to realize there was an even bigger mountain behind the first, and I was just too blind to notice.”

“It's probably going to feel that way more often than not,” Wu Jian confessed, then he raised Hou Jingshu’s face so she could see his smile. “But you’re not going to give up because of that, right?”

“Of course not.” Hou Jingshu shook her head. “I hate quitting more than I hate losing.”

“That’s my girl. Let’s keep getting stronger together. It doesn’t matter what obstacles are in our way. If we can’t remove them right now, we’ll just keep getting stronger until we can.”

“Hmmm. I do like the sound of that.”

Wu Jian and Hou Jingshu shared a smile, but the atmosphere soon shifted as he became more aware of their position. The feeling of her chest against his stomach, of her thighs pinning him in place. Hou Jingshu shifted, causing him to bite his lip as she caressed something that had grown quite large.

“Ah…” Hou Jingshu released a light moan. Her cheeks grew red. “I-I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Wu Jian asked. He didn’t give the woman a chance to answer. Grabbing her shoulders, he flipped them around until she was lying on her back and he was on top. “If you’re really sorry, then you should do something about this.”

“Ahh.”

Hou Jingshu sucked in a breath when he rocked his hips against her. Although there were clothes between them, and sensations were muted, there was no doubt she could feel what was rubbing against her thigh.

“Wu Jian… um… if you’d please,” she mumbled, turning her head.

He grinned. “I got it.”

Wu Jian slid off the bed and knelt, then took her left foot in his hand. She was wearing simple slippers. He slid the slipper off, revealing a tiny foot with elegant toes. He placed a single kiss on top of her foot, then slowly kissed his way up her leg. Hou Jingshu clenched the bedsheets as he reached her inner thigh, brushing aside her ruqun hanfu to reveal the fabric covering her most private area.

“Hnnnn!” Hou Jingshu released a startled squeak as Wu Jian breathed against her. “W-Wu Jian, what are you doing? Stop teasing me!”

“I’m not. Just admiring the view.”

“What view?!”

Wu Jian grabbed the lacy fabric around Hou Jingshu’s hips and slid them down until they dangled off her ankles. He looked back up again, leaned forward, and buried his face between Hou Jingshu’s legs.

Having slept with Hou Jingshu many times already, Wu Jian knew what she liked, and so he didn’t even bother testing out new techniques. He went right in for the kill. Hou Jingshu screamed and clamped her legs around his head as he licked her. He wished he could see the expression she was making, but all he saw when he looked up was her robes and the two mountains on her chest.

“Wu Jian! Wu Jian!”

The way Hou Jingshu called his name as she grabbed his head and pulled him deeper into her was mesmerizing. He wanted to hear her crying out his name more. Her scent surrounded him, dulling his mind. It was hard to concentrate on anything else.

Sweat formed on Hou Jingshu’s skin. Her thighs rubbed against his cheeks. Her taste lingered on his tongue. He grabbed her thighs and pulled her closer, to better bury himself inside of her. Such actions resulted in the woman screaming loudly as she clamped down around his head even tighter. It felt like she was trying to squash him between her thighs.

That wouldn’t be a bad way to go, I guess…

With a final sigh, Hou Jingshu’s thighs slackened, falling off his shoulders. Wu Jian licked his lips, then wiped away the rest of the juices covering his face. He needed a moment to catch his breath. It was hard to breathe when buried between a woman’s thighs. A moment passed, then he slipped off Hou Jingshu’s other shoe before standing up to divest himself of his clothes.

Hou Jingshu propped herself onto her arms as she leaned back. She watched him like a dragon eying prey as he undid his sash, removed his robes, and divested himself of his underwear. The woman sucked in a deep breath as she eyed him up, then down.

“Anyone else would be self-conscious if you stared at them like that,” Wu Jian said.

“That’s okay because I would never stare at anyone else like this,” Hou Jingshu replied.

“Hmmm. I’m grateful for that. I’d get jealous if you looked at someone else like you did me.”

Wu Jian moved forward and climbed onto the bed. Hou Jingshu kicked off her undergarments and wrapped her legs around him as he slid a hand underneath her robes, parting them to reveal pure white skin. He leaned down and placed a kiss in the center of her chest, then continued kissing everywhere else. No area of her skin was left untouched. He soon moved up toward her neck, finding the sweet spot and sucking on it. Hou Jingshu gritted her teeth to keep from letting out beautiful music.

“Jian… kiss me…”

“By your command, Your Highness.”

Wu Jian smiled playfully before he pressed their mouths together. Hou Jingshu’s kiss was hungry. Her tongue was already inside of his mouth the moment their lips connected. He would have said she was like a tiger devouring prey, but her cultivation method was that of a dragon. So maybe she was like a dragon? How did dragons kiss anyway? All the art he had seen of them depicted dragons with long, forked tongues, but hers was soft and small and cute. He couldn’t help but close his mouth around her tongue and suck on it as she made a mess of his hair.

“Haaah… Jian… p-put it in…”

“Mmm.”

Wu Jian said nothing, but he acknowledged her words by rocking his hips forward. He missed. Ugh, that was embarrassing. After all the times they had slept together, how could he miss? Flustered, he guided himself toward her with his hand, clenching his teeth together as he slowly slid inside.

“Ooooh. I always… feel so full… when you’re inside of me like that… have you gotten bigger?” Hou Jingshu mumbled.

“I don’t think so…”

“Hmmm. Maybe it’s because we haven’t been intimate in a while.”

“Maybe. I’m gonna begin moving now.”

“Go slowly, please.”

Wu Jian moved slowly just as Hou Jingshu asked. He kept his ears perked up as the woman beneath him sighed, moaned, and squealed. But slow soon wasn’t enough for him, or her. Hou Jingshu locked her legs around his hips and dug her heels into the small of his back, prodding him on. Wu Jian grunted as he moved faster. His hands soon found hers and he laced their fingers together. She squeezed his hands back.

Hou Jingshu’s eyes were dazzling while she was caught in the throws of passion. They were half-lidded and looking at him with desire and hunger. Wu Jian felt a chill run down his spine. It would be oh so easy to get lost in those eyes.

More than that, however, what he found himself attracted to were her lips, red, puffy, and slightly bruised from all their kissing. He leaned down and took her lower lip between his teeth. Hou Jingshu’s entire body jolted, back arching, chest brushing against his. Her hands moved as though she wanted to wrap her arms around him, except she was pinned to the bed.

Wu Jian picked up the pace. The sound of their passion filled the room. He was lost in her taste, in the feel of her body wrapped around his like a velvet glove, in her scent and the noises she made. He wished this moment would last, but he knew that could never be. His end was already coming.

Hou Jingshu’s entire body tensed as she screamed into his mouth. Her bare chest pushed against his as her legs tightened around him. It was too much for Wu Jian, and he grunted as his thighs and hips spasmed with his jerking motions. All strength left his body. He just barely managed to roll onto his side to avoid squashing Hou Jingshu.

“Haaaah… haaah…”

“Hoooooh… haaaaah…”

Two sets of heavy breathing echoed around the room. Wu Jian and Hou Jingshu stared at the ceiling, their bodies covered in a layer of sweat, minds lost in bliss.

“That was… intense…” Hou Jingshu mumbled.

“Yeah… I wonder if not sleeping together for so long made this more intense than normal?” wondered Wu Jian.

“Maybe. Who cares?” Hou Jingshu must have gained her second wind, for she swung her leg around until she was straddling Wu Jian. She rocked her hips, rubbing against him, a hungry smile like that kind she wore during combat caressing her lips. “I’m not done yet.”

“That is quite the coincidence,” Wu Jian said as he placed his hands on her hips. “I’m not either.”